Realm of the Bizarre
by DeathProof
Summary: Response to csiaddict2's Super Hero challenge. In the wake of Wrrick's death can one magical evening give Catherine and the rest of the team the ability to make all of their own wishes come true?
1. Prologue: Upon a Star

First chapter ina few fanfic from me! I hope you guys will like it. It's in response to csiaddict2's superhero challenge. This is the prologue. Please leave us some reviews.

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Realm of the Bizarre

Prologue

--

"If only I could turn back time," Catherine whispered to the only star in the sky that evening as she wandered out of the cemetery that evening. Warrick had only been gone two days and already she was missing him more than she ever knew she could. She sucked in a deep breath and moved towards her car, climbing in with a final backwards glance at the the grave.

Across town Greg was also getting ready for work, filling the motions of his own new ritual as he thought about everything that had happened over the previous few days. He let a wayward glance flow up to the sky and focused on the only star staring down at him. "If only I'd known beforehand." He sighed and pulled on the clothes that he'd come to keep folded at the end of the bed, still taking the advice Warrick had once given him to heart.

Nick hung up the phone with his sister, the third one to call him that day to see how he was doing, and sighed. He wandered down the hallway sipping a cup of coffee to get him through the night. He scrubbed his hand over his temples and sighed again. As he moved towards the front door he noticed a photograph he'd taken from Warrick's home, one of the entire team together. He looked up at the sky, searching for divinity, searching for his friend, something when he felt the only star above him staring back down at him. "If only I knew what McKeen was thinking."

Grissom walked back into his house and removed the leash from Hank's collar. They had just finished with their evening walk. Grissom rubbed a hand gently over the dog's ears and sighed slowly and looked up out the window. The sun had already set and a single star stood above them, looking down into their home making it just a little less empty. Grissom pulled his lips into a frown remembering how the same star had looked down at him as he fought for Warrick's life. "If only I could have healed him."

Riley Adams pulled into parking deck of the Las Vegas Police Department ready for her second day of work there. She sighed remembering how tense things had been the day before and how on edge her entire new team was. They had lost one of their own and Riley could tell the close-knit bond they all had. Warrick's death had struck a real blow to the entire crew, one she hated seeing them suffer through. She looked up at the only star in the sky and focused on it, "If only I could make them happy."

Sara watched Grissom leave and her heart broke all over again seeing him the way he was. She knew why though, she was feeling it too. A few days ago Warrick Brown, former team member and friend to her, had been alive and now he wasn't. They should have seen it coming, they should have known what McKeen was thinking, they should have been able to help Warrick, they should be able to turn back time and make it so it never happened, and they should be able to be happy. Sara followed Grissom's gaze up to a single star in the sky before he clicked the door of his car closed. "If only I was there."


	2. Chapter 1: It Starts

Another chapter's up and ready for you guys! I'm going to try to update this one as frequently as I update "Half Past Now" but I can't make any promises. Anyway, here's a bit more of the story for you!

Many thanks to those of you who took the time to review the last chapter! It really made me excited to get this chapter up and ready for you. I hope you enjoy it!

Please be kind and reveiw.

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Realm of the Bizarre

Chapter 1

--

Catherine looked down at the clock that sat on her desk and glared at it. Ecklie had given her and Grissom two hours to finish staffing profiles for the team and an evaluation of Riley's first case with the LVPD the previous day. In the middle of it there'd been another death across town and she and Grissom had both decided that she'd be faster working on the paperwork and that he'd be more effective at the scene, so she'd been abandoned. So, she'd been left to finish the mountain of work by herself.

She'd done fairly well and had accomplished more than she'd ever expected to but the problem was that she still had another profile to do and she hadn't even started on the evaluation of Riley's first day. Frankly, she'd been so occupied the day before she was worried she wouldn't know what to say or do in the report. The matter was aside from the point though, she only had two minutes left to finish up. It was impossible.

She stared at the hands of the clock willing them to turn backwards in the same way she frequently willed them to turn forwards so so she could go home. The difference this time was that they seemed to have obeyed. She shook her head, squinted her eyes, and focused on the clock again. It read one hour earlier than it had only moments before.

Disbelief made her grab her cell phone and check the time on there—it also told her that it was an hour earlier than it had been. So did the clock on her computer, the clock in the hall, and the one she saw sitting on Hodges' desk two rooms away. She felt foolish and laughed at herself, it was the first time she'd even cracked a smile since she heard the news about Warrick. Of course she hadn't turned back time... that was ridiculous.

--

Greg had the privilege of mentoring Riley that day. A situation that, according to Catherine, would probably become an arrangement he shared with Nick on a permanent basis. It was exciting to be given the responsibility, but also a bit bothersome at the time. He had a lot going on at the moment and a lot on his mind. Now, on top of that he had to both teach and get to know a new CSI as well as deal with the pounding headache he had.

He'd been having a tingling sensation at the top of his neck all day, right where it connected with his head and it had been leading to the worst headaches he'd had in a long time. Not to mention that, every time he tried to think about something it'd segue in his mind to another thought about the same object doing something odd. He glanced up at the red print powder in Riley's hand as she crouched for a print and had the sudden thought that it was going to spill all over her new, and he knew it was new because she told him, white shirt.

A fly buzzed past Riley in effect causing her to lose concentration, jerk her hand back, and pour the pink-red powder all over her shirt. The motions happened exactly how Greg had envisioned them only moments before.

A second later he had a flash of Riley sneezing because she'd inhaled some of the powder and pitching herself backwards, landing hard on her back. She started to sneeze and he had time to move behind her and catch her. "Wow, thanks," she said.

"Uh-huh," Greg responded quietly, in disbelief. He was having a serious case of De Ja Vu.

--

"It's a shame about this one," the junior officer said as Nick approached the body. "She was a total fox!"

"That's inapropriate," Nick reminded the rookie, sternly. Sometimes he couldn't believe the things that came out of people's mouths!

"Excuse me?" The younger officer asked. "I didn't say anything."

"Don't play dumb with me!" Nick insisted. "I heard you loud and clear."

The younger man just shook his head to the negative and gestured to the body before fleeing his company. Nick had been having the same thing happen to him all day. It seemed like everywhere he went people were making comments and denying that they'd said anything. It was as though there was some sort of stupidity pandemic going around. The couldn't honestly believe that he hadn't heard them.... still... everyone had seemed pretty convinced they hadn't actually said anything. Nick shook his head and thought the moon must be full that night.

--

The victim wasn't completely dead when Grissom had arrived on the scene. He'd gotten there only moments after the coroner who had informed him that the first officer on the scene had misinformed the dispatcher. Having the second most extensive medical training there, next to David's, (though it wasn't much to speak of) Grissom set to work trying to help the younger man save the victim's life.

Frustration came quickly for him though as he realized the two of them weren't communicating as well as they should have been. It seemed that each laceration, wound, or other form of physical trauma that David had described to him when he was examining the victim had vanished.

"Are we talking about the same person here?" he asked at one point. "I don't see any open lacerations here at all. Everything you explained to me is scar tissue."

David showed him his digital camera, "that's impossible," he said, pointing to a few of the marks he'd pointed out. "They're right here in the photographs."

"Something is rotten in the state of Denmark," Grissom commented. "It's not like this guy's wounds are going away just because I touched him, David! I'm not a miracle worker. It's not even my job to help the living... dead and I go together like Rosencrantz and Gildenstern."

--

Riley felt as though she was starting to make a connection with the newly turned level three CSI that she'd been working with that day. Obviously he was still deeply impacted by the loss his team had suffered only a matter of days before but it seemed to her that she was managing to cheer him up a bit here and there. All she'd had to do several times that day was just look up at him and think about how much she'd wanted to make things better and before long he seemed to have a contented smile on his face.

She knew, logically, that there was probably very little correlation to her wanting Greg to be happy and his actual happiness that day, but the idea still brought a smile to her own lips. Even if it was the sheer fact that she was giving the older CSI a distraction from the pain, guilt, and total fury that she somehow knew he was feeling, she _was_ helping him.

She made it her goal for that day to keep a smile on his face. Somehow she was seeing an invisible correlation between Greg's expression and the degree to which she'd been willing him to be happy. A childish part of her felt as though she was truly controlling it as she watched the pain in his face slowly spread into a mild contentment.

--

Sara's day had been frustrating in every sense of the word imaginable. She couldn't remember walking, running, dancing, prancing, or even crawling anywhere she'd been all day and she was starting to feel unnerved. Had Warrick's death been the final trauma in her life that caused her to have situational amnesia? And why was it that her mind had chosen to block out her means of transportation and nothing else.

She was standing in the kitchen when she decided that perhaps she should lay down in the living room and really focus on her day. Perhaps if she put enough thought into she'd remember how she'd gotten to all the places she'd been that night. A moment later she found herself standing in front of the couch with no recollection at all as to how she came to be there.

The television was on as she settled onto the couch and after a few moments she decided that perhaps she should shut it off and focus on solving her infuriatingly bizarre case of selective memory loss. She looked around the room briefly and spotted the remote on the far chair. A moment later she found herself standing beside the chair, completely unable to remember getting up let alone walking over to it.

"That does it!" she exclaimed aloud. "I'm officially certifiably insane."


	3. Chapter 2: What They Knew

Wow! This one took a really long time to finish. I'm really sorry about that everyone! Anyway, I have a bit of an outline for this story and I'm sorry but I'm thinking it's going to end up being pretty short. I'll warn you before I post the last chapter though.

Meanwhile... thank you so much for all of the awesome reviews and encouragement. It's really making me enjoy writing this story!

Please be kind and continue to reveiw.

Enjoy it!

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Realm of the Bizarre

Chapter 2

--

A few hours had passed—and also had not passed and Catherine had herself convinced that she could control the flow of time with her mind. She had used it to her advantage twice already since when she first started playing with it in order to complete her forms on time. The second time she used it, and when she decided she really did have the ability, was when she was heating up a sandwich in the microwave. She simply shifted time forward two minutes and had met the microwave at the beep only a fraction of seconds after she'd put it on. The other time was when she'd been impatiently waiting for Nick to come back to the lab with evidence she needed to process. She'd decided not to wait at all.

Now the two of them were processing the knife together. "You think something weird is going on around here, Catherine?" He asked.

"No," she told him, slightly nervously. _I can control the flow of time. Nothing _weird_ about that._

"What!?" Nick asked her, shocked. "You can what?"

"I didn't say anything Nick," Catherine stated flatly. _I didn't say that out loud, did I?_

"You sure as hell did," Nick commented. "What's going on here... huh? What's all this about you controlling time?"

"I'm telling you Nick," she tried to explain again. "I didn't _say_ anything."

"Right so I'm just reading your mind?"

_You must be. _By the expression on Nick's face Catherine could tell that was exactly what was happening. "Oh wow Nick, you really can!"

"I—I don't wanna be listening in people's heads," Nick complained childishly. "I've been hearing it all day, I guess I just didn't figure out what it was that was happening."

"Might as well embrace it," Catherine commented. "I know I would." _Maybe if Warrick had been so lucky he wouldn't be... dead._

"Maybe," Nick agreed. "Maybe if this had happened to me a week ago..."

_Maybe that could be arranged..._

"You can't be serious," Nick said. "It's impossible to go back in time!"

"Ugh!" Catherine growled. "Am I never going to be able to think around you again?"

"Doesn't look like it," Nick teased back. "But, well... you're not serious are you. I mean, you can't really change time?"

"I can," Catherine stated, flatly. "Well, but I've only got minutes and seconds down. I'm not sure I could go back days... and what if it doesn't work?"

"It's worth a try," Nick said.

_Anything's worth a try if it's for Warrick._

"I completely agree," Nick stated. Though he was sure Catherine had a bit more stake in it than he did.

--

Riley was still working with Greg on the same case, though now they had regrouped at the lab. Riley had been playing with Greg's emotions more and more as the day had passed, and had decided that she was wrong before. She could control the emotions people were feeling just by thinking about what she wanted them to feel. It didn't just apply to Greg, and as she slowly started to realize, her ability was very powerful. She watched a dispatch officer walk out of the room in tears at her own doing.

Greg had had a few too many moments of De Ja Vu and had decided that there was something more to what was going on than met the eye. He had started to realize that he was having premenitions of a sort, of the future. Something that didn't startle him as much as it could have because he knew that his Nana Olaf had an affinity for the occult. Still, the scientist in him was mildly bothered by the fact that he was fairly certain he could read into the future of any person or object that he chose.

Something else that bothered him was this recurring vision of Riley meeting Warrick. He kept flashing to a time though he couldn't tell if it was before or after the present, where Riley and Warrick were standing face to face for the first time. Finally, he decided to ask her about it.

"Riley," Greg said, abruptly as they both looked up from the photographs they were sorting from the scene. "I know this is a pretty weird question, but did you ever meet Warrick?"

"No," Riley said, frowning and trying to force Greg's mood to be a little lighter. Thoughts of Warrick were always a sure way to turn anyone's mood gloomy. "I think I would have really liked him though. The way you all talk about him... he's really missed."

"He is," Greg agreed, feeling oddly content given the subject at hand. He was about to state how weird it was that his emotions were going haywire, when Riley interrupted him.

"Can I ask you a question," she said as though choosing her words carefully. Greg thought carefully and realized that he wouldn't have a direct answer for what she was about to ask. "It's sorta personal—well, to the team."

"Feel free to ask anything you want," Greg said, slowly. "But I can't promise I'll be able to give you a legitimate answer."

"How long has Catherine been in love with Warrick?" She blurted the question out, and then wore an expression that looked like a child who'd just gotten herself into trouble.

"What!?" Greg asked, more shocked by the question than he'd prepared himself for. "What makes you ask that?"

"Well she is," Riley pointed out. "That much is obvious. Just spend two minutes with her. It doesn't take an emotionally tuned freak to figure that one out."

"They've always been like that," Greg answered. Though, he'd only ever seen it as deep friendship until that very moment. "So I guess forever. You should have seen the way he looked at her..."

--

The victim made a full recovery thanks to Grissom's aide. According to the EMT's who'd arrived on the scene his three GSW's and multiple lacerations were steady and wouldn't be causing him any trouble. By some miracle they expected him to be out of the hospital that evening. Grissom had bid David goodbye and made his way back to the lab where he'd found Sara in his office.

She had solved her own problem of situational amnesia. It wasn't that she couldn't remember walking or driving to the places she was, it was that she could in effect transport herself wherever she wanted to be just by thinking about the location. She was also starting to control being able to think about places without suddenly appearing there. She very deeply wanted to tell Grissom about her new ability but she didn't know how he'd react. As a scientist, it was almost paradoxical. It was impossible but it was happening.

"Can I tell you something without you thinking I'm completely crazy," he asked her suddenly. She simply nodded and allowed him to continue. "I think I'm a healer."

"You want to go to med school?" She asked, not understanding. "Of course I'll support you... but honestly I never thought you'd give up this job."

"No, I don't want to be a healer," Grissom stated, slowly. "I think I am a healer. Let me see that finger... the one you cut the other night when you were slicing vegetables."

"Okay," she said, even more confused than she had been a moment before.

She extended the hand to him, feeling a little gross. She was wearing a bandage over it but it was still a disgusting slice. She was fairly certain she'd cut to the bone, either way when she'd looked at it that morning it was red and yellow looking and well on its way to infection.

Sara watched as he removed the bandage and ran a finger gently over her cut, looking at it intently. Though she expected his touch to hurt it was quite the opposite, actually. After a slight tingling sensation the slow nagging pain that had been with her since the incident had vanished. She examined her finger and realized that there was no cut there at all anymore, just a small pink line of a scar to remind her that it had ever existed at all.

"I think I can take care of that too," he offered. "If you want... I didn't know."

"Wow," she said, feeling shocked though not quite so much as she would have if she hadn't discovered her own new ability. "No, leave the scar. For some reason I think I like it."

"So what do you think?" Grissom asked her. "How did this happen? And why?"

The only response she offered him was to move to the corner of the room and then after a few moments move outside the door, and walk back into his office. She slumped herself back down in the chair across form him and looked him in the eye. "Why does anything happen?"


	4. Chapter 3: Planning Process

I am SO sorry for my hiatus. It was unintentional. I started out waiting for help with my other story, Half Past Now, from somone who gave me the impression that she would be helping me. Then... things just away from me. Plus there was this whole nasty being grounded thing... Anyway, I'm really sorry.

The next chapter will be Grissom, Sara, and Riley's parts. I hope you don't mind I split it up.

-Heidi.

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Realm of the Bizarre

Chapter 3

--

Catherine practiced and practiced all evening, getting less of her actual work done than she should have though she could always just go back and finish it. She realized that having her ability was going to be a gift and a curse towards her work ethic. She had always been good about getting things done on time but now that was all relative.

Having practiced for the better part of an evening she realized several things about her ability. One, with time travel almost anything was possible. Two she could change as much or as little as she wanted to in her future or present when she went back, it seemed that all she had to do was visualize the desired result and it would occur. Three, she could take anything, living or inanimate, back into the past with her and bring it forward again as long as she was touching it.

She had also gathered enough information to have some sort of plan, though she was still a bit unsure about it. She didn't know what had caused her ability, nor Nick's, and she also hadn't any idea if anyone else had actually been given some sort of ability or not. She suspected that Riley had some sort of power because in the few brief times she'd been around the younger CSI she'd felt oddly elated, something she wasn't prone to feeling just hours after the death of a loved one. Riley had some sort of control over emotional status.

Then there was the problem she had deciding weather or not she should inform Grissom about her ability, Nick's, and her suspicion that Riley had one similar. And, would he be as supportive of her plan to go back and retrieve Warrick or would he resist it?

Then again it was Warrick after all, she didn't care what anyone else though in the slightest. If there was a chance she wouldn't have to wake up another morning in her life without him in it she was going to take it.

--

The more Greg had worked his way through the night the more he felt ready to get home. He kept having small premonitions about things that would change in the blink of an eye. He felt certain that he'd been right about them but then somehow Catherine would do something to prove him wrong, it was giving him a sense that perhaps she was doing _something_ more significant than other people.

Other things were happening too to make him wonder if he shouldn't go home and sleep it off. He kept having visions, most involving the team and sever involving Warrick, that he knew couldn't be possible. It was such a strange sensation, trusting his mind completely but feeling so certain he was wrong. The scientist in him worried that it wasn't a gift passed down to him from his Grandma Olaf after all but a severe psychological break, at the loss of Warrick, slowly growing on him.

The question was which part of him did he believe more? His instinct which told him that this was legitimate and he really was seeing the future. Or, perhaps, the scientist in him was right and he was slowly slipping away from reality. Would he lose complete control of his mind? The thought was less than thrilling to him.

"I just wish I knew for sure," he said out loud though he didn't know to whom. Not to himself as he wasn't completely psychologically impaired yet, but perhaps to someone else? Warrick? Grandma Olaf? Both perhaps?

All he was certain of was that he would have his answer. The the time was going to come when his questions would be answered. How, when, and why?

--

Nick visited Catherine several times throughout the course of the night and had thus gained full knowledge of her entire plan. The two of them would go back to the night Warrick had been killed and lurk in the alleyway. First they would plant a recording device in Warrick's car to capture the conversation he had with McKeen before he'd been shot and perhaps a visual recording device to attain proof that he had in fact intended to use his weapon on Warrick, the rest was fairly simple. They wouldn't give him the chance.

What he knew from being able to read Catherine's mind, even though she hadn't been so forthcoming with the idea was that she intended to kill Geoffrey McKeen. There was more rage in her tiny form than he'd ever seen. Just being in the room with her when thoughts of Warrick or McKeen came into her mind was enough to let him know there was a lot more to what she was feeling than he'd ever realized before.

A part of him was fairly certain that Catherine was in love with Warrick—something he only wished he'd noticed ages before because it had been long known to him that Warrick had feelings for Catherine in a way he'd never had for another woman, not even Tina.

He didn't know what to say or do regarding Catherine's intention though, if he should mention to her that he knew the full intent of her plan or if he should go along with it. It wasn't a state secret that he too had felt like killing McKeen, and had even been on the edge of doing it himself. Still, a part of him felt that it was wrong and it was for the courts to decide what happened with him the second time around. His gun shot wound had been a fatality the first time... but who knew how it would go down the second? Also, a part of him thought that Catherine deserved to fulfill her vendetta and that part of him wanted to give her the chance.


End file.
